Summary
Peter Morville, leveraging his background in Library Information Science and decades of experience, discusses the evolving challenges in information architecture and user experience. He shares stories from his work with Macy's and the Library of Congress, highlighting the persistent issues caused by organizational culture and governance limitations. Morville stresses the necessity of planning alongside agile methods and introduces systems thinking as a way to understand complex adaptive systems. He elaborates on different category models—bounded, fuzzy, and centered sets—emphasizing the nuanced nature of classification. He underscores the importance of connections, context, and culture, citing Edgar Schein’s framework to reveal invisible organizational layers. Morville reflects on the difficulty of cultural change, referencing John Sarno’s mind-body insight and Dan Ward's concept of the simplicity cycle, illustrating the tension between complexity and simplicity in product design. He advocates for co-creation and mapping of systems and contexts to foster organizational alignment. Using metaphors from nature, architecture, and ecosystems, he calls for organic simplicity and multi-functional digital spaces. In closing, Morville stresses that information architects are creators of environments for understanding and encourages collective efforts towards clarity amid complexity.
Key Insights
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Organizational culture can be the biggest barrier to lasting change in information architecture.
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Authority and governance structures critically enable or hinder information architecture improvements.
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Complex products often face tension between desired simplicity and cultural celebration of complexity.
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There is a vital difference between naive simplicity and elegant simplicity achieved through deep understanding.
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Systems thinking helps map complex adaptive systems but maps are only tools, not solutions.
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Most categories in user experience are fuzzy or centered sets, not clear bounded sets.
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Context is central to user experience; understanding it requires ethnographic-style inquiry.
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Culture operates like invisible water, requiring deep inquiry through artifacts, interviews, and history.
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Double loop learning, altering underlying beliefs, is far harder than behavior change but essential for real transformation.
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Co-creation and shared mapping of systems helps bring entire organizations along the path from complexity to clarity.
Notable Quotes
"Every few years we have some consultants come in and help tidy up our mess, and as soon as they leave, we mess it all up again."
"The Library of Congress’s web presence was a findability nightmare, like the Winchester Mystery House."
"When you’re in a culture that celebrates complexity, even if you say we need simplicity, it’s hard to change."
"Planning and making, thinking and doing are all part of the process of making—there’s no true dichotomy."
"Most categories are fuzzy; there’s a center and periphery but no clear boundary."
"Anyone engaged in user experience work should read The Ethnographic Interview by James Spradley to understand context."
"Culture is like water to a fish—ubiquitous but nearly invisible."
"We are all really bad at double loop learning—we’re willing to change actions but resist changing beliefs."
"Information architects use nodes and links to create environments for understanding."
"The original meaning of understanding is stand together, not stand under."
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